


waiting on you is too hard

by neutrophilic



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Bad Communication, First Time, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2018-10-25 20:15:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10771638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neutrophilic/pseuds/neutrophilic
Summary: Victor spends a year trying to figure out what his relationship with Yuri is exactly. He's not very successful, until he is, and then it's all worth it.





	1. World Figure Skating Championships, Tokyo

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my two excellent betas: eobseoyo, who was tremendously helpful while writing and without whom I don't know if I would have ever finished, and atrata, who went over and above the call of friendship to help me structure this coherently without having seeing the show. All remaining errors are obviously mine.
> 
> This fic is basically done, except for some residual cleaning up and editing along the way, so the next update should hopefully not take too long.
> 
> The title is from Tibetan Pop Stars by Hop Along.

**World Figure Skating Championships, Tokyo**

Only years of media training and the kind of discipline that made him a gold medal winner many times over kept Victor moving straight ahead, his blandest smile plastered on his face, rather than obviously scanning the crowd as he entered the arena. Instead, he had to settle for looking around surreptitiously, cutting his efficiency in half. But even stepping on Georgi’s heel—twice—didn’t stop him.

Katsuki Yuri had to be there. He knew it.

“Eager to get that gold medal, Vitya?” Yakov asked, clapping Victor around the shoulder.

“Obviously,” Victor replied, automatically. If only he could get a decent look at the man walking about twenty meters in front of them. He was probably too short to be Yuri, but he had the exact same haircut, so it was hard to be completely certain.

Victor, for at least the billionth time, berated himself for not getting it together earlier. If he had, there wouldn’t be any need to look for Yuri; they would have walked in together. He should have given his number to Yuri months ago at the GPF banquet, before Yuri got too drunk to figure out how to unlock his phone. He should have recognized Yuri immediately, instead of being thrown off by his glasses. He definitely should have remembered that Japanese Nationals were at the exact same time as Russian Nationals.

He’d only realized that pertinent piece of information two days after both competitions were over. He’d been regaling Makkachin with yet another fervent description of the many, many people at the banquet who would have been happy—maybe even overjoyed—to give Yuri his number. After all, Victor had gotten Yuri’s number off a smirking Chris as soon as Yuri’s current coach had sobered up enough to cart Yuri upstairs. Surely some good Samaritan must have done the same for Yuri.

Victor used to be certain that had happened. In the blissful period between Sochi and Nationals, there had been no doubts. It had barely even bothered him when another day without Yuri dawned. Nights had been more difficult, with the great distraction of practice behind him. But the challenge was not insurmountable! After all, as he had taken to telling himself every night as he lay in the quarter of the bed Makkachin had ceded, he could easily wake up the next morning to a text or an email or something. Anything. Or, more realistically given than Victor had enabled every single possible alert on his phone to go off at top volume, he could wake up at any time of night with his phone lit up by Yuri’s overture.

It hadn’t happened. There had been a truly staggering number of false alarms, but nothing from Yuri. Undeterred, every day Victor had stumbled into practice thoroughly sleep deprived and nailed every single one of his jumps so crisply that even Yakov had nothing to say.

The same couldn’t be said about Nationals. The morning before his short program, Victor’s doubts had overcome him. What kind of person was Yuri to act the way he did at the banquet, like Victor really meant something to him, and then ignore him so completely for two weeks? He made it through his routine on autopilot, and Yakov had rewarded his sloppy skating with a lecture that left him with a lingering headache. And, to top even that, Yakov had confiscated his phone.

Though he hadn’t needed to—it was only Nationals—he had pulled himself together in time for his free skate. With another gold medal heavy around his neck, Victor had headed into yet another interminable banquet with a plan to get drunk enough to rival even Yuri at the GPF. Victor had never met a problem that couldn’t be solved with liberal applications of either alcohol or skating. Unfortunately, he had to quickly jettison that idea under Yakov’s too watchful eye, but Victor had resolved to remedy that when he got home.

All of that might have explained why it took him so long to realize that his competition hadn’t been the only one that weekend: Yuri had Nationals too. Victor had been drunk enough when that epiphany overcame him that he’d slid off the couch—displacing a thoroughly surprised Makkachin—but not so drunk that he’d been unable to get around geoblocking to view Yuri’s routines.

Yuri had flubbed every single one of his jumps, even the ones he’d landed cleanly at the GPF. Yuri’s musicality, evident in even the grainiest videos on YouTube, had deserted him as well. Victor couldn’t wrap his mind around why. Yuri was the only Japanese male figure skater certified to compete internationally—a fact that Victor had picked up early on in his google stalking—and so his Nationals should have been a cinch. Maybe he was injured?

Later, sober, Victor had watched it again to see if it had really been that bad. His hand over his eyes, he’d made it through nearly 45 seconds of Yuri’s free skate before decisively turning his phone off. Everything had suddenly become clear. Obviously Yuri hadn’t reached out to Victor because he’d needed to lick his wounds. Drunk and sober Victor had agreed on this essential fact.

All Victor had needed to do was wait. And he did. Very patiently, for a week at least. Then somewhat less patiently for another few days. And then Victor had let despair wrap its cold arms around him.

It hadn’t been a total wash. Victor had realized two key things from returning despair’s embrace. One, that if Victor let everything overtake him right as he was putting his dirty dishes from dinner in the dishwasher—his single plate, which symbolized how he was going to be single for the rest of his life, accompanied only by a dog who only cared about Victor’s existential dread in that it provided an opportunity for said dog to lick every single thing in that dishwasher; since Victor was way too busy spending the rest of eternity lying on the cool tile of the kitchen floor to close it—he’d discover the truly alarming about of dust that had built up under his fridge. Two, that Worlds was going to be in Japan.

That epiphany had hit at some point after Makkachin had abandoned all pretense of being well-behaved and had clambered up onto the door of the dishwasher to get at the bowls. Another epiphany had followed in quick succession: Yuri was in Japan too.

He’d sat up at once. If Yuri was in Japan and Worlds would also be in Japan, how hard would it be for Yuri to attend as a spectator? Not hard at all, he told himself.

The more Victor had thought about it, the more sense it made. Obviously Yuri didn’t care for social media or the internet in general. What other explanation was there for all of his empty social media accounts? He didn’t even update his Instagram. Yuri must prefer all communication to be in person. Victor had refused to consider any other possible reason for why Yuri was so reluctant to reach out to him.

“Victor!” But now that they were actually at Worlds, the only person shouting Victor’s name was Yakov. “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve been saying, have you?”

At that moment, the man that Victor was at least 80 percent convinced wasn’t Yuri turned to look back at the commotion, then Victor was 100 percent convinced.

Now that it was safe, Victor refocused on Yakov. “Of course not! I’m sure you’ve already told me all about it at least a dozen times.”

Yakov blustered for a bit. Victor tuned him out, deliberately this time. It was always the same thing with Yakov before the short program: Don’t do anything too fancy during the warm up and pay attention to the other skaters’ routines. The first went without saying—Victor had made that mistake already—and as for the second, Victor didn’t see the point. Especially now when there was a decent chance that this would be his last competition. Not that Yakov knew that.

Besides, there were more important things to pay attention to, like another potential Yuri walking quickly towards Victor. He stood up straighter, the better to show off how well his jacket hung off his broad shoulders. But no, it wasn’t Yuri.

Nor were any of the other men that Victor could see. There was no text arranging a meet-up, either. Not even word relayed through any of the other skaters. Nothing. Not before and not after he skated the best possible version of his short program.

Yakov was too pleased with his performance to say anything about how Victor refused to put his phone down during dinner and then left uncharacteristically early.

It was stupid to be this disappointed, Victor told himself firmly as soon as he made it into his lonely hotel room. It didn’t help. He refreshed his email for the billionth time, but there was nothing new, nothing interesting.

There was nothing for him to focus on, either. The free skate was tomorrow, but he’d skated it so many times by that point that it was all he dreamed about, and even his dream self was bored to tears with it. He’d win gold with it. That he was sure of.

But next year, he thought, if he wasn’t going to retire to coach Yuri like he’d half-planned, if he was actually going to keep competing, then there were routines to choreograph. A productive distraction. He’d sketched out a free skate already, mostly to have something to distract Yakov from his off mood. Not his best effort, but he’d need time on ice to refine it. As for a short program, he had no ideas at all, only a playlist stuffed full of possibilities.

Instead of listening to any of the potential music pieces, Victor methodically went through Instagram and looked at every single post-GPF picture Yuri had been tagged in. All seventeen of them. He tried again to discern if the strained expression on Yuri’s face in pictures two, four, seven, and twelve through fifteen meant that he missed Victor. Or if the smirk in picture ten suggested that he was pleased about getting one over on Victor. He was crying, or close to it, in the rest, but Victor wasn’t so self-centered to think that had anything to do with him.

The next morning, with some measure of sanity restored, Victor took stock of the situation while showering. So what if Katsuki Yuri didn’t care enough to reach out to him? He was Victor Nikiforov. It didn’t matter that Yuri had felt like the answer to every question he’d ever asked and at least three he’d never even thought to consider. He’d already turned down two people yesterday alone and winning gold for six years in a row must feel better than winning it for five. He could find his own answers.

He opened up his short program playlist and began to listen in earnest. It took all of four songs for Victor to land on the perfect one. He hit repeat.

Hours later, Victor barely heard the whir of the electronic lock over the ending notes of On Love: Eros. Yakov must have gotten a key to his hotel room. In the three agonizing seconds of silence before Eros started up again for easily the fortieth time, he wiped at his eyes.

“You should be warming up,” Yakov said, after he marched over to the bed and wrestled his phone away. Victor followed him, letting the familiar tenor of Yakov’s lecture drown out the strings of Eros.

Yuri wasn’t at his free skate either. It didn’t matter, he told himself.

It didn’t. He won.

Victor almost managed to convince himself that he’d put the whole embarrassing thing behind him. Then the video of Yuri skating his free program surfaced.


	2. Grand Prix Finals, Barcelona (1)

**Grand Prix Finals, Barcelona**  
When Victor had imagined getting engaged, he'd never bothered to think about what would happen immediately after. Well, sex obviously, but the part in between that and starting a wedding Pinterest was a blank nothing. It was just as well because then the reality couldn't disappoint. Standing in a hotel bathroom trying not to think about how Yuri remembered absolutely nothing from the banquet wasn’t part of his plan. How could it have been?

Though it did explain a lot. Namely how Yuri had nearly collapsed in terror every time Victor had tried to build upon their obvious connection after moving to Hasetsu. Oh god, Hasetsu. He'd shown up with all of his worldly belongings to coach Yuri, to stay in Yuri's house, to live with Yuri's parents, and Yuri didn't remember anything about inviting him to do exactly that. He was such an idiot.

For a moment, he wanted to put his back into truly wallowing in his embarrassment. He wanted to lie down on the tiled floor and map out all the cracks in the ceiling until he knew them as well as the ones in his room back in Hasetu. For someone who had spent most of his adult life performing under stressful conditions, Victor had been relatively unpracticed in the art of breakdowns. But under Yuri’s expert tutelage, he’d become a pro. He could go from Yuri declaring that his Eros was fried food to wanting to get drunk to getting drunk to getting so drunk that he sobbed into the fur of his very tolerant dog about how nobody understood love the way that he did in absolutely no time flat.

If that hadn’t been bad enough, Victor had stooped to consulting flowers for answers on multiple occasions. Playing _he loves me, he loves me not_ had left him with nothing more than a pile of petals that he had to carefully dispose of in order to hide from the Katsukis exactly how far gone he was for Yuri. A massive waste all around, especially the time that he’d snuck out to the beach and thrown them all in the sea. He’d been trying to be symbolic. Instead the breeze had blown a petal directly into his eye.

He hadn’t been so bad at something he’d wanted this much since that dark year after his senior debut when he’d been trying to claw his way back up after a jump gone spectacularly wrong.

Victor heard a tentative knock on the door.

“Are you almost done in there?” Yuri asked, softly.

“Almost!” Victor said as cheerily as possible.

In truth he hadn’t even started his night time ablutions. There was a different cream that needed to be meticulously applied to each part of his face, and Victor began to line all of them up on the counter.

For a second, Victor thought about just splashing some water on his face and calling it a night. Fortunately, he managed to get a grip on himself. Proper skin care was important! What would he have if his beauty left him?

Maybe Yuri, he thought, looking at the ring lying safe in the soap dish as he started step one. Maybe Yuri, even if he’d massively overstepped every single one of the bounds of normal human behavior. Even if he’d been much more impulsive than he’d thought.

Engaged! They were engaged! And Victor didn’t want to let his self-recriminations sour it any longer. Despite himself, Victor longed to rewatch the video of Yuri skating Stay Close to Me. Normally, that had been his way to reassure himself after analyzing and reanalyzing and re-reanalyzing every single thing that Yuri had done that day, trying to figure out if they were dating or not. The way that Yuri had skated, the line of his body suffused with longing—it didn’t make sense unless he wanted Victor to be there with him. The whole thing had made Victor stupid, sick with the same emotion he’d mostly convinced himself that he hadn’t needed to skate his program properly.

He hadn’t even remembered until this moment, cleanser foaming on his cheeks, that Yuuko had told him early on that Yuri had always liked to mimic Victor to try to get better. If only he’d managed to connect the dots better and realized that Yuri had done his routine out of habit and not invitation. Elaborate come-ons were more Victor’s thing. Apparently.

With deep-felt reluctance, Victor put down his phone and got out the snail gel. The faster he got this over with, the faster he could get back to Yuri. That should be reassurance enough. 

After his face was taken care of and his hands were thoroughly washed, Victor put his ring back on and started at it for a while. He couldn’t figure out exactly how he’d ended up with Yuri’s ring on his finger. He wanted to tell himself that it didn’t matter that Yuri didn’t remember the banquet, but it meant that he had an even worse understanding of Yuri than he thought.

Back when Victor had first arrived in Japan, he’d thought it wouldn’t take long at all to lean everything worth knowing about Yuri. He already had the essentials: Yuri was a very good skater who could be excellent with minimal training, and he had good taste in men. What more did he need to know?

When it had turned out to be rather a lot more complicated than that, it hadn’t bothered Victor. Or, he corrected himself, it had—a lot—but the pursuit of knowledge had been more rewarding than he’d anticipated. Every time Victor figured out something new, something substantial about Yuri, it’d been amazing. It was the same feeling he’d used to get when he won a gold medal, back before it was a given that he’d skate off with one.

Victor looked at himself one more time in the mirror to check that everything was blended in properly. He smoothed out his expression—he’d get frown lines at this rate—and entered the bedroom. Yuri was clad in his matronly pajamas, stretched out on top of the covers, his phone in hand.

“I wanted to say,” Yuri said. He paused before continuing, twisting to put his phone down and then pulling down his shirt where it had ridden up.

Victor found that very disappointing. They had just gotten engaged. It didn’t bode well that Yuri had more clothes on than a nun. Even if they couldn’t have We Just Got Engaged! sex when Yuri had to skate the next morning. _Oh no,_ Victor thought, while Yuri continued to fiddle with his hem, _oh no, maybe that’s why Yuri knocked on the door_. He must have thought that Victor valued his vanity over having sex. Even if that might normally be true, it certainly didn’t apply to Yuri.

“If you don’t like your ring, I can return it tomorrow morning,” Yuri finally said.

Victor closed his hand to feel the metal of the ring against his palm. “You’re skating tomorrow.”

“After I skate then.”

“Do you not like your ring?” Victor asked, at a complete loss.

“No,” Yuri said. “I like it, but if you don’t like yours…”

“I love my ring,” Victor said in much the same way that he’d said he loved pork cutlet bowls.

“Oh,” Yuri said, blushing. “I should go to sleep.” And, contrary to Victor’s hopes, he rolled over and did exactly that.

Victor thought about joining him, then went to his bed and pulled out his headphones. Watching Yuri skate his old routine once or twice or fifty more times wouldn’t hurt anything. His rigorous skincare routine meant that he never had bags under his eyes, and if they wouldn’t tell, then neither would be. But he couldn’t get properly into it. His new ring was too distracting.

After round four, he gave up and slipped into the bed beside Yuri’s. Victor let the weight of his ring pull him deeply into sleep.


	3. Grand Prix Finals, Barcelona (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gave the chapters boring, useful names only after an enormous exercise of self-control. I wanted to name them from all the songs that I listened to on repeat while writing this. In that version, I totally would have called this _a hole in the middle where the lightning went through it_ and felt very deep.

_After the final, let’s end this._ It was direct. Simple. No room for interpretation. Victor could lie on his back and turn the words over in his head all he wanted, but they were never going to become something else. Yuri was done with him.

Yuri had left the room at some point. Not long ago, probably, but Victor couldn’t be sure. Time felt odd. He could focus on something other than his blank, empty, Yuri-less future for only a moment at a time. Victor would notice that the leg of the bed was digging firmly into his hip or that the rug was going to leave unattractive red marks on his forehead. He’d think about how he should change out of the robe that a stupidly optimistic younger version of himself had decided wouldn’t be too forward to wear. They’d been engaged, after all.

And then he would hear Yuri’s beloved voice say the words _After the final, let’s end this_. There was no realistic way that he was going to stop crying anytime soon.

Some distant part of him remembered that Yuri was going to skate tomorrow, and that he’d, as Yuri’s coach, should care about the fact that Yuri needed sleep. But Victor was a piss-poor coach and at least as selfish as Yakov had accused him of being. He wanted Yuri to come back so he could throw himself at Yuri’s feet and beg him to reconsider. Or, seeing as he was already on the floor, he could roll over to Yuri’s feet. The key part was the begging while lying prostrate, not some much the manner by which he made that happen.

There was a hesitant knock at the door. Victor felt a shadow of his earlier anger. It was more Yuri’s room than his. If Yuri wanted to be selfish, he should be selfish. _After the final, let’s end this._ _Fuck you, Yuri,_ he thought. _Let’s_ like Victor had any kind of say in Yuri’s decision, like they had talked it through and come to the agreement that it was over. Instead, Yuri had sprung it on Victor out of nowhere, just after Victor had gone through the enormous effort to get his robe to hang open exactly enough to convey that although he wasn’t necessarily asking Yuri to fuck him right then, if Yuri was down, he was, too.

The irritation over Yuri’s reversion to shyness only provided enough motivation for Victor to get himself onto the nearest bed. Unfortunately, it was Yuri’s, but there was nothing left in him to try to lever himself the few inches over onto his. A husk of a man: that’s what Katsuki Yuri had left him.

Finally, after enough time that Victor started to wonder if he’d imagined the knock—could people get so sad that they hallucinated?—the door opened. Victor managed to resist looking for a second, maybe two, before he gave into temptation and let his head flop towards the door.

Yuri stood in the entryway with a truly enormous bucket of ice. Normally, Victor could see every single one of Yuri’s feelings writ large on his face. Victor’s favorite open book. He had wanted to spend decades reading it.

Now, there was nothing there for him to interpret. Yuri’s face was completely blank. Victor couldn’t even delude himself into thinking he saw a little bit of regret floating around Yuri’s eyes.

“The ice machine on our floor was broken,” Yuri said, like it explained anything. He frowned slightly. 

Victor wondered if Yuri was mad at him for being so ridiculous. Before Victor had enough time to fully translate his expression, Yuri disappeared again, this time into the bathroom.

Victor closed his eyes. His bangs were unpleasantly damp and tangled up on his forehead. He made an abortive attempt to brush them to the side, but only managed to splay them out further

_After the final, let’s end this._

What if that was his way of saying that they’d never been in a relationship at all? And the reason Yuri had never tried to kiss him—he never even seemed interested in kissing him—wasn’t because he was shy or waiting for marriage or embarrassed by his relative inexperience. It was simply because he didn’t want to. The lump in Victor’s throat felt large enough to cut off his air at any moment.

He heard Yuri moving around in the bathroom, then coming back into the main room. He tried to focus on the sensation of a tear slowly making its way across his nose, instead of listening to the soft sounds of Yuri approaching him. It was hopeless. He was hopeless.

The shitty mattress dipped as Yuri sat on it, dislodging Victor enough that he shifted closer to Yuri. He knew that this was his cue to cede the bed, but he couldn’t manage it yet.

“Victor,” Yuri said, softly.

He couldn’t think of anything to say. If Yuri truly didn’t want him, then there was no point in groveling for scraps right when Victor was sure he was at his least appealing. He should try to negotiate: instead of revisiting the retirement issue after the free skate, they’d revisit it after the season. But the words wouldn’t come.

“Victor,” he said again, in the same measured tone.

Obligingly, Victor opened his eyes. Yuri was sitting stiffly next to him holding a glass of ice water in his left hand.

“Here,” Yuri said, offering the glass. “It’ll help.”

Victor blinked. How did Yuri think water was going to help anything? Even if Victor was wrong and that was vodka on the rocks, he doubted it would be enough to drown these sorrows.

Yuri looked down. “I get headaches after I cry a lot unless I drink water.”

Now that Yuri mentioned it, the muscles around his temples felt tight. Victor sat up. Yuri clearly hadn’t prepared for Victor to capitulate that quickly, and he jerked his arm slightly, spilling some of the water on the blanket.

Victor reached for the glass and drank it down in one go. Yuri didn’t look away from him once, as if he was trying to understand Victor, as if he longed to know Victor as well as Victor wanted to know Yuri. But that was Victor tricking himself again.

“Thank you,” Victor said. Yuri had been right. It had helped. “You should sleep.”

Yuri nodded. “I can take the other bed.”

Victor didn't argue, though he knew he should have. He fell asleep imagining he could smell Yuri's shampoo on the pillow.

The next morning, Victor sat on the bed, coat on, waiting for Yuri to finish gelling his hair back. Victor felt scraped thin and wildly unprepared to deal with the media. He didn’t have much time left to pull himself together: Yuri's entire pre-competition routine took as long as Victor spent on his hair on days when he didn’t expect to get photographed by the press. He’d woken up a full hour before Yuri simply so he’d have enough time to try to wipe the effects of hours of sobbing off of his face.

He couldn’t decide if he should wear his gloves to the arena or not. He couldn’t bring himself to remove his ring, but he didn’t know if revealing that was a good idea. His vision blurred. Not again. He’d ruin his concealer.

“Are you ready to go?” Yuri asked. He’d wrapped his hand around the doorjamb. His right hand.

Victor could see that Yuri was still wearing his ring. His heart lurched and suddenly began to beat faster. Maybe there was hope.

“I’ve been ready for hours. I’m always waiting on you, Yuri.” Victor said. Good, he’d managed to project the right amount of cheer. He thought his smile had probably been too shaky, but the next one would be better.

Yuri’s face closed up, but he didn’t say anything.

Victor left his gloves behind. If he was going to be so stupid about Yuri, then he should go full bore. Maybe Yuri would surprise him. He was good at doing that.


	4. two weeks before nationals

**Two weeks before Nationals**

Victor spent the whole airplane ride back to Saint Petersburg having thoughts that ended in multiple exclamation points. Thoughts like, "Yuri is going to live in Saint Petersburg with me!!!" and "Nationals are in two weeks!!!" and "Yuri might even live in my apartment!!! With me!!!" It was not very restful. 

In contrast, Yuri had pulled on his eye mask immediately after buckling his seat belt and had fallen asleep on Victor's shoulder before the flight attendants had even started their safety spiel.

By the time they landed, the only thing Victor had managed to accomplish was wearing himself out. They were here, finally, and Victor wanted to show Yuri everything all at once, all of his favorite places, starting with the rink and ending with his apartment. Their separation at customs felt unbearable; he couldn't wait for their life together to begin in earnest. His spirits dropped further when he saw Yakov and Yurio waiting for him at the baggage claim.

He was supposed to have spent the time in transit picking out music for his hastily thrown together short program. He'd promised. Instead, Victor had barely noticed any of the music he'd obligingly listened to, distracted by the way Yuri's hair fell over his ears. Even Victor couldn't put together a compelling program about that in two weeks.

Yakov looked Victor up and down. He'd taken the liberty of collecting Victor's bags for him. "You ready to go?"

"Hello to you, too," Victor replied. "Yuri's not through yet."

"Yuri said he can take care of Katsuki," Yakov said.

Yurio grunted in acknowledgement, hunched over his phone. The hood of his sweatshirt was pulled so low that Victor didn't think he could even see the screen.

"But Yuri—" Victor started.

"Are you going to take this seriously? If you want to make the podium at Nationals, then stop arguing!" Yakov yelled.

Yurio buried even further into his clothes, but to no avail. Yakov had attracted the attention of a gaggle of young girls, all wearing cat ears. Yurio glowered at Victor, but Yakov's hand covered his mouth before he could say anything—a maneuver Victor remembered well from his own teenage years.

"And you! Be nice in front of your fans," Yakov said, quieter but with the same amount of implicit threat. He gestured with his free arm. "Victor, before we're surrounded."

Victor followed, but only after turning back to be sure Yuri hadn't appeared while he was distracted. He spent the whole taxi ride fretting that Yuri would show up, arms outstretched, and, without Victor there to fill them, immediately decide to retire and go back to Japan. The picture that one of Yurio's fans posted showing Yuri giving a surprised-looking Yurio a hug only assuaged his fears a little.

Skating, at least, was a distraction. Only Yakov was there to witness how quickly Victor tired, how stiff he'd let himself get. The pairs skate at the exhibition and the practice for it had kept him from completely calcifying, but it obviously hadn’t been enough. Yakov had him skate figures until he was completely out of breath, and then he sat and listened to possible short program pieces until he could stand to go back out on the ice. They repeated this routine until Yakov's jaw cracked from yawning in the middle of a rant about how Victor was letting his left arm flop around like a particularly unattractive fish.

Not even stopping to shower, Victor rushed home, hoping that Yuri was there and hadn't abandoned him for a hotel or—worse—Hasetsu. When he finally wrenched open his front door, he stopped, disoriented. Somehow, the fact that he'd packed up most of his worldly belongings and shipped them off to Japan had slipped his mind. He'd expected it to look exactly as he'd arranged it last, with everything placed perfectly, a coat rack ready to receive all the clothing he'd wrapped around himself to ward off the cold.

Instead, it was almost completely bare, decorated only with some of his larger pieces of furniture and a couple of boxes. Victor shed his coat on the coach. Yuri wasn't sitting there, eagerly waiting for him, so that answered one question. Victor was too tired to be properly disappointed, but he could tell that this was going to ache more than his body would tomorrow.

Slowly, Victor took off his sweater and shuffled towards the bathroom, peeling off his clothes as he went. He was unpleasantly sticky and recent experience had taught him that if he was going to bawl his eyes out, the shower was as good as anywhere else.

Victor knew on some level that he was being melodramatic. Yuri wasn't the type to change his mind about moving to a whole new country and arrange to leave without telling anybody. That was more Victor's style.

It was more realistic that Yurio had helped Yuri check into some hotel, and if Victor had taken the time to look at his phone before his mad rush home, he'd already know all the details. Victor sniffed. Anyway, it would be asking a lot for Yuri to rusticate like this with him. His apartment was barely habitable.

At least he still had a bed. A bed with sheets on it, thankfully. Victor's hand was on the doorknob to the master bathroom before it properly registered. His bed had _sheets_ on it. Victor hadn't arranged for that, only for someone to come through to deal with any dust build-up.

He whipped around. There was only enough light for Victor to see a shadowy mass completely enveloped in blankets on one side of the bed. He knew that there was only one possible explanation. But Victor still needed to make sure. How many times had he been sure about Yuri only to be proved wrong? 

Trying desperately for silence, he walked around the bed. He succeeded, right up until he didn't. As soon as he rounded the last corner, clumsy from exhaustion, he stubbed his toe on the bedpost.

Exercising a great amount of willpower, Victor kept himself from swearing as vigorously as the situation warranted, restricting himself to using only one language.

The mound of blankets shifted around, and Yuri's face emerged. He squinted at Victor, who was contorted in an undignified pose, trying to figure out if he was bleeding.

"Oh," Yuri said, "Victor." He drew out every word like it was almost too much effort to make his mouth obey him.

Victor wanted to hear him say his name in exactly that tone of voice for the rest of his life.

Yuri shoved ineffectually at the blankets before giving up. "Are you coming to bed?"

"Didn't you sleep enough during the flight?" Victor asked, genuinely curious. All of his earlier exhaustion had fled. Even the pain from his pitiably abused feet was gone. The exclamation points had returned. Yuri was here!!! In his bed!!!

Yuri blinked slowly, and then he covered his face up with his arm. "Turn off the light before you do.”

It took Victor a few moments to collect himself once Yuri fell back to sleep. What he most wanted to do was crawl into the nest of blankets and wrap himself around Yuri. But Yuri was such a stickler for proper hygiene that he'd probably throw Victor right out if he tried. Victor couldn't even count the number of times Yuri had extricated himself after they'd soaked together in the onsen, claiming that he needed to take another shower just to be sure he was completely clean.

Victor headed to the bathroom for a quick shower and an abbreviated version of his facial skin care regime, but he still hesitated before joining Yuri in the bed. He'd thought about exactly this moment for months, an eternity, but Yuri had been so resistant in the past. They hadn't even slept together in Barcelona after they'd resolved to move to St. Petersburg.

Victor decided any questions about it would have to wait until the next morning and got into bed. He then was faced with a new question: how exactly he was going to get any of the blankets away from Yuri without waking him. Trying to gently wrestle them away from him didn't work and pulling harder only made Yuri's free arm flail around and grab them right back. For lack of a better solution, Victor wrapped himself around Yuri and tried to absorb some of his warmth.

Morning arrived too soon, and there was no time for questions. Yakov called him at a stupidly early hour to tell him to get over to the rink in 30 minutes. Victor managed to field that call and stumble around in the pre-dawn dark to collect up all of his clothes without unduly disturbing Yuri.

He slipped into the rink with a new idea for his short program crystallizing in his mind. Love was the best theme, after all. Maybe he _could_ make something about Yuri's hair work.

—

By the time the day had ended for Victor, Yuri had already headed home hours earlier, at Victor's insistence. After extensive negotiations conducted mostly while Victor warmed up Yakov had allowed Victor to spend exactly one hour every day coaching Yuri.

"What does he even need you to tell him, now?" Yakov had asked. "He beat your world record, and his next competition is Japanese Nationals. You, on the other hand, have a free skate that you haven't worked on since you decided to play at being a coach and a nonexistent short program."

When Victor had relayed the information to Yuri, he'd half-hoped that Yuri would object. Then they could fight for more time together from Yakov.

Instead, Yuri had fiddled with his skate covers and looked up, supremely unconcerned. "He's right," Yuri had said, "it's only Nationals."

Under any other circumstance, Victor would have been overjoyed, and the majority of him was. Yuri, finally confident in his abilities! But Victor wanted to spend time with Yuri, as much as he could get, and an hour would never be enough.

If that hour had been the absolute pinnacle of his day, the nadir had to be watching Yurio introduce Yuri to the skaters he didn't already know. Victor had been reduced to trying to catch glimpses of it in between working on his quadruple lutz. It hadn't gone particularly well for either of them.

By the time he joined Yuri at his apartment, Victor felt he was at the very least twice as exhausted as he'd been the day before. He had the rudiments of both of his programs down, but it wasn't enough. He'd been planning to run through part of his step sequence for Yuri at the apartment, to make a whole production about it, but there was no way he'd be able to do it in a way that be impressive when he was this run-down.

Yuri was sitting on the floor when Victor entered, surrounded by books. He lit up as soon as he saw Victor, and Victor knew the best part of the day was clearly yet to come.

"I got Yurio to order us dinner," Yuri informed him, and went into the kitchen without even so much as a hug in greeting.

Victor collapsed onto the couch and promptly fell asleep. When Yuri returned with his food, Victor ate it all in a daze, half-formed thoughts filling his head that fled as soon as his mouth was empty enough to speak. He made it to the bed and into a proper sleep without managing to ask if Yuri was planning to join him.

The next morning, Victor woke up plastered up against Yuri. Under the covers, this time, and Victor felt as he'd melt from how hot it was. He'd acquired a new fact about Yuri: apparently he put out as much heat as a furnace when sleeping.

Unfortunately, there was no opportunity for Victor to learn other new things about Yuri. He was too busy and too tired and all of his days ended up being much the same as the first. He didn’t get to show off his step sequence even once.

It didn't seem to bother Yuri much. He listened attentively to whatever remarks Victor made during their time skating together and always had some kind of takeout ready when Victor stumbled home. Victor kept hoping against hope that he'd catch Yuri slacking off at the rink, watching Victor's skating instead of practicing his own. It didn't happen. Yuri was the perfect student. Victor was so lucky.

He'd taken to wandering the apartment while eating breakfast, looking at whatever small progress Yuri had made in unpacking, asking himself what it meant. Every morning, he'd find the glasses in a different cabinet, Yuri apparently continuously unsatisfied with their placement. His books went from being shoved on shelves haphazardly, to being sorted by color, to being properly alphabetized, even though most of them were in Cyrillic. Victor had been nearly ten minutes late the morning he'd discovered that, preoccupied with trailing his fingers against their spines, imagining Yuri's careful labor.

One night, the day before Yuri was set to fly back out, Victor awoke, his nastiest bruise throbbing.

“Sorry, sorry,” Yuri said, “I didn’t mean to.”

Victor had already forgiven him. Yuri hadn’t even needed to ask. Victor would excuse him everything.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to milk it. “My poor shin, Yuri, I don’t know how I’ll recover.”

“Let me see,” Yuri said. But he didn’t wait for permission before throwing off the covers and taking Victor’s calf in his right hand. 

The metal of his ring was a shock against Victor’s skin. With his other hand, Yuri carefully traced the outlines of Victor’s purpling bruise using the faint light that filtered through the thoroughly inadequate curtains. His forehead was creased in concentration. Victor wanted to smooth it out with his mouth.

“I stole your bruise balm,” Yuri said. He rested his thumb gently against the center of the bruise.

His hands were so hot. Victor’s skin felt scorched every place that Yuri touched. He imagined he could feel all of the ridges and whorls on Yuri’s fingertips well enough that he’d always be able to point out Yuri’s fingerprints. That he’d be able, from this moment on, to go around the apartment and know exactly which things Yuri had left marks on. Proof that Yuri was going to stay.

Abruptly, Yuri dropped Victor’s calf and sprung off the bed. Victor didn’t move. He didn’t even adjust his leg, despite the fact that it was at a weird angle. He closed his eyes and waited.

Soon, Yuri emerged from the living room, brandishing a tube. He turned on one of the lights Victor had arranged around the bed—Victor’s one contribution so far to reclaiming the apartment—clambered back on, and kneeled over Victor’s leg.

“Can I?” he asked.

“Yes,” Victor replied. He couldn’t decide if he wanted Yuri to realize exactly how difficult saying anything at all had been. Surely Yuri already knew the effect he had on Victor.

At that, Yuri took off his ring and balanced it on Victor’s thigh, right above his knee. Victor held himself very still. Yuri poured some of the cream into his hands and rubbed them together to warm it up. He applied it efficiently, in less than a minute, making the effort not to dig in too painfully. He lifted his hands, and Victor felt the loss acutely.

“You could kiss it better,” Victor suggested, after Yuri made no attempt to reclaim his ring.

Yuri flushed all the way down his neck. Not for the first time, Victor wished that Yuri wore less to bed. Yuri’s wardrobe in general, Victor thought, left quite a lot to be desired.

Rather than listening to Victor’s excellent idea, Yuri slowly picked his ring back up and turned off the light. Suddenly, in the dark, Victor felt Yuri’s lips against his bruise for only a heartbeat. Victor stopped breathing.

Yuri flopped over and wriggled around, grabbing easily 90% of the sheets in the process. Victor was in no shape to put up a fight.

“Goodnight, Victor,” Yuri said.

Victor didn’t reply. Despite his exhaustion, it took him quite a while to fall back asleep. Instead, he stared at the ceiling and hoped.


	5. Nationals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay and how short this is. :( Real life ate all my free time. The next and final chapter should be sooner.

The one saving grace about Victor's short program performance at Nationals was that it hadn't made its way onto YouTube before Yuri called him. There were only stills and a couple of grainy cellphone videos on Twitter. Yuri's, on the other hand, had full video available, and Victor had sequestered himself inside his empty hotel room to watch it as soon as he managed to get through all of his press statements. Yakov, who sometimes knew exactly what Victor needed most, had already arranged for a suitably nutritious dinner to be sent up.

Victor ate it, methodically. It was bland, but it helped to wash out some of the bitterness about how poorly he'd done. Third. He'd come in third, behind Georgi. His hand still stung from when he'd touched down out of a jump.

Then, in as good a mood as he could muster, Victor watched Yuri's performance. As always, it was beautiful. The beginning was stiff, and he hadn't listened to any of Victor's advice about downgrading jumps—not that Victor had expected him to—but it was beautiful. Then, it was over, and Victor was still kilometers upon kilometers away from Yuri, alone. He pressed play again.

When Yuri called him, Victor was surprised. He'd done some quick calculations on the time difference back in St. Petersburg and had firmly instructed Yuri not to stay up too late before the free skate. Yuri had agreed, like he'd agreed to everything Victor had said since they'd moved in together. Victor hadn't even hoped for anything other than the good luck text he'd gotten that morning. He'd been right last year, when he thought that Yuri didn't like to reach out electronically.

"Hello," he said into the phone after the first ring. The phone rang again, and Victor fumbled around to press 'accept call' properly this time. The fourth time ended up being the charm.

"Hi, Victor," Yuri said. "I can't talk long."

Victor pressed his phone more firmly into his cheek. Yuri's voice sounded so thin.

"You aren't listening to your coach, Yuri," Victor said. "I thought you were going to do a toe loop instead of going for a flip.”

"I wanted to prove I could do it,” Yuri said, ”without you there."

He had. Victor's heart had turned over when he'd watched it, even on his tiny phone screen. It had been even more gorgeous than when Yuri did it in practice.

"I'm proud of you," Victor said, because it was true and because he knew Yuri wanted to hear it. "But I have a lot of notes about your step sequence, just because your PCS scores are normally so high doesn't mean—"

"I think I would have skated it better if you were here," Yuri cut in.

Victor clenched his lips shut around the words _I think I would have skated better if you were here too_. Yuri didn't need to hear that now. Yuri had blown everybody at his Nationals out of the water and was currently in first. He probably wanted to talk to Victor to get some reassurance, Victor thought. It was just the Cup of China all over again.

"Then I can't wait until I see you skate it at Four Continents!" Victor pulled himself together. "You did so well! It was so beautiful!”

"Oh," Yuri said, in a pleased way. Then nothing further.

The silence stretched out long enough that Victor checked his screen to make sure that they hadn't been disconnected.

Another eternity passed. "I saw an article about your Nationals," Yuri said, tentatively.

Oh no, Victor thought. He couldn't think of any possible end to this conversation that wasn't going to be terrible. Victor had been so hopeful that the English-language press would take longer to post about his shaky comeback.

"Yurio did well," Yuri said.

"Yes," Victor said. He had.

"I thought—" Yuri started and paused. "Your costume was nice."

Was that really the best that Yuri could think to say about how he'd done? Victor didn't ask if it looked best when he was stretched out on the ice during his fall. Victor hadn't actually wanted his costume to be a surprise; he'd imagined trying it on and showing it off at the apartment multiple times, but, like demonstrating his step sequence, it had never happened.

"Thank you," Victor said. "Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"Yes, but I wanted—" Yuri said. "Oh, Mari's back with Makkachin. She says hi. I have to go."

"I'd tell you good luck, but you don't need it," Victor said. "I know you'll do perfectly!”

"Good luck to you too!" Yuri said and hung up.

Victor sat on the incredibly uncomfortable office chair with his slowly cooling phone to his ear for a while. No crying, he told himself firmly. That was the absolute last thing that he needed. At least Yuri hadn't broken up with him over the phone for the sake of Victor's skating. Yuri was so good at surprising him

—

Halfway through Victor's free skate, right in the middle of a jump, Victor realized all at once why this routine was flowing out of him so much better than his disastrous short program had. If Eros had been about Yuri seducing him, then this program was about his longing for Yuri. How could he have fooled himself into thinking it meant anything else?

He touched down. Under rotated, and he couldn’t tell if the judges would count it as a quad. He drove all thoughts of that out of his mind. Instead he thought of how he’d felt looking at his phone before stepping out onto the ice, looking at a picture of a beaming Yuri at the top of the podium at his Nationals. How he felt every morning getting out of bed and leaving Yuri behind. The way he’d felt back in Barcelona.

He got silver. Inspiration had struck too late into his program for him to completely overtake Yurio’s lead after the short program. Both Yurio and Georgi spent the whole medal ceremony glaring at him. It was novel, Victor thought. Not the glares—he was used to competitors resenting him always winning—but that someone was so clearly mad at him for losing. 

Afterwards, in the locker room, Victor managed to corner Yurio. Georgi had already stammered out his congratulations to Victor as soon as they’d come off the ice, clearly still disappointed that Victor’s poor skating hadn’t lasted another day.

“Congratulations!” Victor said, hand outstretched, mouth in an almost genuine smile.

Yurio only looked at his hand and frowned further.

“I would have thought you’d be pleased,” Victor said, losing the smile, “beating me.”

“It doesn’t count if you skate like that!” Yurio said and stormed away, arms dramatically crossed over his medal. 

Only to run into Yakov, who took Yurio firmly by the shoulders, turned him around and supervised their handshake with all the gravity Yakov could muster.

“You better step up, old man,” Yurio said, squeezing Victor’s hand as hard as he could. It was only slightly painful. “Or I’ll make you regret coming out of retirement.”

“How?” Victor asked. Yurio had already beat him. What else could he do?

Yurio yelled something incomprehensible and ran off. He refused to say anything further to Victor at the banquet. Yakov, too busy trying to wrangle Yurio into an appropriate level of politeness around sponsors, didn’t pay much attention to Victor. He didn’t need to. Victor behaved.

Once he discharged his duty and was allowed to retreat to his room, cheeks aching, Victor realized he had three missed calls from Yuri and one text. Hands shaking in the elevator, Victor read it. _When I get back, we should talk_. 

Three glasses of ice water lined up on the bathroom floor did nothing to help without Yuri there to hand them to him.


	6. the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuri and Victor talk it out and bang. Not in that order.

Victor woke with a start. His face was wet. For a disorientating moment, he thought he must have been crying in his sleep again. Then he realized it was just Makkachin licking at his face.

It took another long minute for Victor to comprehend two things. One, all of Makkachin’s attention was focused on one particular spot on his cheek. Victor must not have washed off his face mask thoroughly enough. He’d be courting acne at this rate. Two, Makkachin was supposed to be trapped in some dinky Japanese airport with Yuri for at least another day.

He'd spent hours and hours at the airport in St. Petersburg waiting for Yuri’s increasingly delayed flight to get in, thinking dark thoughts about snow and snow storms and how ridiculous it was that it was the twenty-first century and things like weather still made travel difficult. Waiting in the airport had been more bearable than spending any more time in his barren apartment, even if the molded plastic seats dug into at least two separate bruises no matter how much he shifted around. Even if by the sixth selfie with some fan who wanted to assure him that he’d pull it together next time, Victor had started to long for one of Yurio’s hoodies.

Only the news that said flight was definitely, absolutely for sure canceled, and that Yuri wouldn’t manage to make it for at least another day, had made him consider leaving. It still took four very firm texts from Yuri on the subject to get him to actually go. At least this way he’d have the opportunity to brush his teeth thoroughly before Yuri got back, Victor had thought, desperate to find some silver lining.

Now, Victor sat up to get a better angle to properly welcome Makkachin back home. Makkachin obligingly got up on the bed and flopped over, ready for a belly rub. He let the familiar feeling of Makkachin's soft fur distract him from wondering if he really should brush his teeth again before greeting Yuri or if that'd be too weird.

After what was definitely an insufficient amount of time, Makkachin bounded off the bed in the direction of the living room. In Yuri's direction, probably. Makkachin always had the best taste in people.

Victor gathered up his courage and followed. He stopped in the doorway, arrested by the sight of Yuri after a full week and a half apart. Yuri's back was to him, and Victor couldn't see much more than his coat-clad arm. It was still enough to reveal new angles, a whole new geometry to his love for Yuri.

At some point back in Hasetsu, Victor had looked at Yuri out on the ice working through his step sequence for his free skate. He couldn't see Yuri's face, but he had been able to perfectly picture the way Yuri's little frown of concentration was starting to shade into a real frown of frustration. _Oh_ , Victor had thought, _I actually do love him_. It had been overwhelming: the realization, the feeling, everything. When Yuri had stopped skating and turned to him expectantly, it had taken him an embarrassingly long time to figure out that Yuri just wanted him to press play on the music and not skate out to him and declare his undying devotion.

He’d thought that would be it, the end of any new revelations about his feelings. After all, he had sighed over exactly this emotion in countless, interchangeable books, consumed in countless, interchangeable hotel rooms, while Yakov snored loudly in the next bed over. _How romantic_ , he’d thought, as the dashing hero finally realized his feelings. But that was always the end of the story. And before Yuri, there had been two things that Victor loved unequivocally: Makkachin and skating. He had always loved them in exactly the same all-encompassing way. Skating had left no room in him to love it more.

Not so with Yuri. His feelings just kept expanding him out to fit them all in.

Without thinking on it further, Victor began to walk towards Yuri. At almost the exact same time, Yuri moved to the right and turned around. He was completely bundled up in outdoor gear with only his coat unzipped and his scarf unknotted to show that he realized he wasn’t still outside. Even his hat was on. He froze, Makkachin’s food bowl in his thankfully bare hands.

“Yuri,” Victor said. “You’re back.” _Smooth_ , he thought, frustrated with himself.

Yuri bent over and fumbled with the bowl. “I am. I wanted to surprise you,” he said, before slowly standing up.

Then, he rushed at Victor. Victor only had a second to brace himself before he was being thoroughly hugged. The zipper of Yuri’s coat was digging into his bare chest deeply enough that he knew it’d leave marks, but he didn’t care. In all of Victor’s fantasies about how exactly this reunion was going to go, this scenario was about as good as he could have reasonably hoped for.

Victor wanted to pull off Yuri’s hat so he could bury his nose in Yuri’s hair, but he was unwilling to free up even one arm to do so. Instead he tried to push at it with his chin. It wasn’t very effective. But Yuri laughed at him a little, the sound muffled by Victor’s neck and the motion jiggling his scarf against Victor’s chin, so it worked out fine. He tried again and managed to knock it askew enough. Yuri’s hair smelled like stale airplane. It was amazing.

After no more than a minute, Yuri’s hold on his back slackened. Victor was far from ready to stop—first Makkachin, now this abbreviated reunion—but he loosened his arms too. Yuri moved back half a step and then met Victor’s eyes, blushing furiously. It took all of Victor’s self control to not wrap him back up in a hug. He settled for stealing Yuri’s crooked hat and tucking it into the pocket of Yuri’s coat.

“I won gold,” Yuri said, after that had been completed.

“I saw,” Victor said, “did it feel as amazing as it looked?”

In lieu of an answer, Yuri stuck his arm down the front of his many, many layers and retrieved his medal. He held it up for Victor’s inspection. Obligingly, Victor reached out and tried to take it from him. Yuri didn’t relinquish it, so Victor wrapped his hand around his and bent his head to take a better look.

It was like any of the medals that Victor had carefully wrapped up and packed away back when he decided to move across the world for Yuri. It probably was the twin of the gold Yuri had won two years ago, before they’d even met. Victor shouldn’t feel even more impossibly fond of Yuri just to look at it, but he did.

He lowered his head even further and brushed his lips against the medal, still warm from Yuri’s chest. He heard Yuri inhale sharply, so he did it again. Yuri's breath stayed measured, but he gently placed a hand in between Victor's shoulder blades. Yuri didn't obviously react to kiss number three so—telling himself that four times would probably be pushing it—Victor looked up at Yuri through his lashes and slowly began to straighten his back.

All of a sudden, Yuri moved forward and kissed him. The angle was off so he only got the very corner of Victor's mouth. Victor turned his head to line them up properly before it even fully registered. Yuri had kissed him!!! Everything was wonderful!!!

Except that his lips were tense and unyielding against Victor's, as if he was the one caught off-guard. It didn't make sense. In Victor's burnished memory of their first kiss, Yuri had been more open than he was now, even if it only lasted half a second. If this kiss hadn't been with Yuri and therefore by definition in the top two best kisses of Victor's life, then Victor doubted it would even rate at all.

Frozen, Victor was at a loss. He should probably pull back and ask what Yuri meant by it, but what if Yuri never kissed him again in his whole life? Trying to deepen it also seemed like a nonstarter. Yuri would probably run away back to Japan to retire and definitely never kiss him again.

For lack of a better idea, Victor began to slowly stroke his thumb against Yuri's knuckles, trying to coax him to relax a little. Yuri was holding on to his medal so hard that Victor could feel the tendons in his hand pressing against Victor's palm. He'd move back in just another second. If he didn't say anything, maybe Yuri'd work up the courage to try again. Maybe it wouldn't even take months for them to get to their third kiss.

Right as Victor resolved to turn thought into action and move away, Yuri parted his lips. Only a fraction, but Victor stopped all plans at once. Then, Yuri pressed his mouth slightly more firmly against Victor's, and this kiss shot to the top of Victor's personal list.

Emboldened, Victor opened his mouth too. Yuri took that invitation and ran with it, using his free hand to cradle the back of Victor's head and bring them even closer. Victor lost all capacity for rational thought. Yuri was swaddled in what appeared to be every single sweater he owned, Victor's trapped arm was twinging somewhat distressingly, and Makkachin was still loudly licking the food bowl, but now Yuri's mouth was truly the stuff of Victor's dreams.

Unfortunately, like most of Victor's dreams, it ended way too soon. Yuri broke the kiss and took a quarter step back. Victor hoped against hope that this was the prelude to Yuri stripping off every single one of his sweaters, and, unlike in his recurring dreams, maybe real Yuri would let him touch him at the end.

"Um," Yuri said.

They were standing close enough that Yuri's features were all blurry. But Victor didn't need a perfect view to see how Yuri's eyes were wide open in panic. It was actually quite chilly in the apartment, Victor noted, and his boxer briefs weren't up to the task of keeping him warm. He tried to envy Yuri's overdressed state.

"I forgot to give Makkachin water," Yuri said.

 _Is that all_ , Victor thought, resuming his knuckle stroking. Yuri had kissed him, and, after over a year of longing for exactly that, he didn't need to sink into total despair just because Yuri had cut it short. "I can do it," he said.

"No, no," Yuri said, "let me." He pulled his hand out of Victor's grasp. Gently, but still.

Victor began to follow Yuri towards the kitchen. "How was Mari?" Victor asked. "Not going to miss Makkachin too much, I hope."

"She's fine," he said, flatly, visibly tensing his shoulders. "Can we talk after this?"

Maybe his first instinct had been right after all. Victor stopped. He watched Yuri go into the kitchen and scrabble around for the bowl, resolutely not looking in Victor's direction. It shouldn't have been a surprise that this had gone so downhill so quickly. But it was.

Makkachin, apparently unconcerned about the lack of water, had curled up on the couch and seemed about ready to fall asleep. So that meant both the sofa and using Makkachin to distract himself was out. Victor didn't want to be selfish just yet.

That left the bed as the only place in the whole apartment to sit down on like a normal person. Victor walked briskly back into the bedroom and made the bed. That accomplished, he was faced with the question about if he should put more clothes on. If this was going to be the conversation that Victor feared most, then he probably should. He didn't exactly want to make a habit of getting dumped when mostly naked. But picking out the clothes for that occasion felt almost unbearably depressing.

So Victor sat on the bed. His eyes immediately went to the doorway to try to track Yuri's movements through the apartment. He couldn't see anything and, besides, it just made him feel exhausted. Victor had never been particularly prone to nerves, but he used to have a trick to deal with them back when he was a teenager and competitions hadn't been so routine. Or, he remembered having a trick, but he'd completely forgotten what it was. Maybe if he had remembered, he could have passed it along to Yuri and been a good enough coach that this whole thing would be moot.

Instead, Victor gave into his most easily obtainable desire and laid back on the bed, wrinkling the duvet. He wondered exactly how many hours he'd wasted in exactly this position. How many hours he'd poured into trying to get Katsuki Yuri to love him back. The answer to that question was how many hours were in a year.

At least now he'd accumulated so much practice in waiting for Yuri that he could be counted as a master. Crying and waiting, that's what Yuri had taught him how to do, the most bitter part of Victor thought. Crying, waiting, how to love food again, how to love skating again, how to love anything again, but not how to live without Yuri. So nothing useful, then.

Finally, Victor heard Yuri enter the bedroom. At once Victor sat up. Probably too quickly. He felt lightheaded. Yuri looked profoundly anxious, which did nothing good for Victor's own case of nerves. At least Yuri had gotten rid of all of his winter gear and was wearing one of his workout shirts instead of roughly a billion sweaters. This shirt had a very small hole over his right clavicle and was Yuri's favorite and Victor's least favorite. Putting the hole aside, which was already asking a lot, it was way too big for him, and Yuri was always messing with the hem instead of listening to him during water breaks.

In silence, Yuri also sat on the bed, just slightly out of arm's reach. For probably the first time in Victor's life, he wished that he hadn't informed his interior decorator that he wanted the biggest mattress that could get through his front door. Not that it really mattered. Yuri was staring down at his hands instead of looking back at Victor.

Finally, Yuri shifted and angled his body slightly more toward Victor. "I wanted to ask you something," he said, meeting Victor's eyes. He immediately looked down in the vicinity of Victor’s chin.

“Yes,” Victor finally managed. He could feel sweat collected on his palms. The worst part of pantlessness was that he couldn’t try to discreetly wipe them off on his thighs without compounding the issue.

“I wanted to—“ Yuri stopped. For a second, his eyebrows began to draw together, but then it was gone. Subsumed by a look of total panic.

Shouldn’t it be easier, the second time? Yuri was such a natural at most things, he shouldn’t need more than a dry run to get good at dumping Victor. And Victor had had days to prepare himself this time. Did Yuri feel worse this time because he’d kissed Victor and thought he’d given off the wrong impression? He shouldn’t. That was nothing compared to the wedding ring that Victor couldn’t figure out if Yuri was still wearing. He had been earlier, but that could have been one of the layers he’d shed before confronting Victor.

“What was the question, Yuri?” Victor asked after he couldn’t bear the wait any more. He had thought he’d wanted to draw this breakup out and he did. Every second that Yuri spent examining his chin was another second that Victor could pretend he didn’t know exactly how this was going to go. But Yuri looked so acutely miserable that Victor couldn’t prolong it any further.

“Your lips are chapped,” Yuri said.

So that’s what had captured his attention so thoroughly. Victor moistened his lips with his tongue. They seemed fine to him.

“No, not there." He inched forward on the bed slightly and raised his arm. His ring gleamed in the light. “Here,” he said and pressed his thumb gently against the upper corner of Victor’s mouth.

Victor didn’t move. Not when Yuri touched him and not when Yuri stopped. His hand was still close enough that he could probably feel how Victor’s breath had sped up. He reached out his tongue to the indicated spot and felt a very slight roughness. That was what too much tooth brushing got him.

"And here," Yuri said, in a low voice and touched the other side of Victor's mouth. Whatever Yuri was feeling, it was obvious to Victor that it was no longer overwhelming anxiety, but Victor couldn't interpret it further. Or rather, he didn't trust himself to have the kind of objectivity required to do it right.

Victor licked his lips again and this time he grazed Yuri's thumb. Just barely, he couldn't even taste it. Yuri’s eyes darkened, and he almost dared to do it again.

Abruptly, Yuri lunged at him, replacing his hand with his mouth. Victor took significantly less time to get with the program than before and opened his mouth for better access immediately. If this was the question Yuri wanted to ask, then the answer was yes, obviously and forever yes. But he knew that it wasn't. This was just a detour from Yuri's plan, like Victor showing up out of nowhere to coach him had been.

But when Yuri gently took Victor's lower lip between his teeth and bit down hard enough that Victor almost expected blood it stopped mattering. All that was left was Yuri's mouth hot against his, and Yuri's name on a repeating loop in his head.

Yuri started to stroke Victor's cheek with his thumb, exactly how Victor had done earlier around Yuri's medal. It was too much. Only this, only making out on a bed with no touching below the neck, and Victor was all of a sudden on the verge of tears. Fortunately, Yuri took that moment to pull back and press his nose against Victor.

"Yuri." Victor turned his head and kissed Yuri's hand. He had been aiming for his thumb, but near enough.

In response, Yuri climbed into Victor's lap and reclaimed Victor's mouth. Victor wrapped his arms around Yuri and pulled him in closer still. Then reconsidered and stuck his hands up the back of Yuri's shirt so he could more directly feel the strong lines of Yuri's back. He was familiar enough with it, after all the time spent correcting Yuri’s form, but this new context was enough to make his hands shake. He pressed them flat below Yuri's shoulder blades and was rewarded with some tentative grinding.

Victor pulled him in closer yet and began to kiss the side of Yuri’s throat instead. He could feel Yuri’s heartbeat thrumming against his lips. The grinding became a lot less tentative. Victor let one of his hands fall to the curve of Yuri’s ass. Even Yuri’s thick sweatpants couldn’t hide the way his muscles flexed as he thrust against Victor. Everything felt amazing. He never wanted it to stop.

And of course, at that moment, Yuri did. He slid back and sat near the very end of Victor’s knees. Victor felt completely unable to deal with it. He was the most turned on he’d ever been in his entire life, and all he wanted was for Yuri to come back closer. At some point, Yuri had snuck his hand into Victor’s hair. Normally Victor hated that. Too cognizant of all of the effort he’d put into making it look its best thoroughly wasted. But with Yuri he’d allow anything.

Yuri scratched Victor’s scalp with the very edge of his nails. Victor’s whole body shivered. Exercising a great deal of will, Victor opened his eyes to try to puzzle out yet again what Yuri was thinking. But he was stymied by Yuri’s fogged up glasses. Deliberately, Yuri reached up and removed them. Then he got up off of Victor and carefully placed them on the bedside table. Less carefully, he pulled off his shirt in one quick motion, and Victor was almost too overcome with relief to regret the loss of his fantasy where he tore Yuri’s shirt off. It would have been a twofer. First, and most importantly, it would have gotten Yuri closer to naked, but second it would have ruined that horrible shirt forever.

But then Yuri was back, and Victor fell flat back on the bed. There were still pants to contend with, but Victor could be patient. Probably. And then Yuri started moving against him again, and he lost all ability to wait.

Fortunately, Yuri had had the same thought and was already scrambling to push down his sweatpants. They fell to the side. Victor felt Yuri's hands on the waistband of his boxer briefs. But then Yuri stilled.

At once, Victor stopped pressing kisses along the curve of Yuri's jaw. Victor shifted back to try to collect himself, he could stop, he could do whatever Yuri wanted. But apparently what Yuri wanted was Victor to move so he could more effectively pull off Victor's underwear.

The feeling of Yuri’s cock against his was searing. He didn’t think, he couldn’t think. And then Yuri put his hand around them both, and Victor stopped trying. It was a relief that Yuri seemed to have a plan, some ability to put thought into action, because all he could do was mouth at Yuri’s throat and try not to completely unravel.

It was Yuri, it was Yuri’s hand, and Victor could not hold that thought in his head for longer than a second if he wanted this to last at all. But it was all he could think about.

“Yuri,” he said, into Yuri’s shoulder. Overcome. “Yuri.”

At that, Yuri’s grip tightened. And it was all over for him. He slumped against Yuri, wrung out and mind wiped clean.

Yuri’s whole body was still rigid against his, which brought him back to his senses. Victor quickly replaced Yuri’s hand with his own and kissed him full on the mouth. Yuri surged against him and pulled at his hair.

Emboldened, Victor sped up. In the future, if there was a future, he could draw this all out, really show Yuri what he could do for him, but this time he couldn’t wait. He had to have proof that Yuri wanted him, that he was desperate for him.

It didn’t take much before Yuri came, mouth slack against Victor’s. For a long moment neither of them moved.

Then, before Yuri could say anything, before he could do anything, Victor preempted him by getting out of bed. He didn’t know how he felt, except somehow every single emotion all at once. All he needed was another moment to get a grip. So he went into the bathroom to pull out his softest face towel and spent a long time avoiding his eyes in the mirror while he fiddled with the taps to get the water to the perfect temperature. 

He took the damp towel back into the bedroom and looked at Yuri stretched out on the bed. Yuri had covered his face with his elbow, so Victor let himself trace with his eyes all of the red marks he’d left on Yuri’s neck instead of immediately pushing forward. Everything he wanted to say closed up his throat. He sat back down on the bed, silent.

Yuri moved his arm and looked back up at Victor. He took the silently offered towel and cleaned himself off.

“Thank you,” he said. Then he sat up.

Yuri squared his shoulders—his beautiful shoulders, Victor hadn’t even really kissed them yet—and looked down at his hands. “This wasn’t how I planned it to go,” he said.

It wasn’t how Victor had planned it either. At some point, he’d thought there’d be rose petals. But that had been months ago. He’d learned to stop hoping so much in his old age.

“I meant to talk to you. To ask—” Yuri continued, his blush climbed its way up his ears. “Mari helped me plan out what I was going to say, and um—“

He got up and put the towel in the laundry basket. He came back and sat closer next to Victor. “This went better when you did it.”

“Did what?” Victor asked, confused.

“Asked who I wanted you to be,” Yuri said, “at the beach. I was going to ask you to go to the river first, but.”

Victor began to hope against hope. This didn’t sound like a breakup. He wanted desperately to take Yuri’s hand in his, but didn’t dare.

“So?” Yuri asked.

“I’d go to the river with you,” Victor said.

“That’s not—”

Throwing away his caution, Victor took Yuri’s hand and cleared his throat. “I’d go anywhere you asked me to.”

Then he finally met Victor’s eyes and smiled broadly at him. “I’d follow you too.”

Victor felt almost completely happy. They seemed in perfect accord, content to just stare dopily at each other.

“Shouldn’t we go to the rink? We’re going to be late for practice,” Yuri said, finally.

“It’s a rest day,” Victor declared.

“But—“

Victor kissed him to shut him up, but it quickly got out of hand. He could barely believe that he could kiss Yuri and Yuri would kiss him back!

“Listen to your coach, Yuri,” he said against Yuri’s lips.

Yuri took it in the spirit it was intended and kissed him back. It didn’t end up being exactly the most restful of days, but Yuri did end up making comments on Victor’s step sequence while wrapped only in a towel, so it was all in all very productive.


End file.
